Since President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, he has changed it five times. Most notably, he suspended the employer mandate last summer. This is widely known, but almost no one seems to have grasped its significance.

The Constitution authorizes the President to propose and veto legislation. It does not authorize him to change existing laws. The changes Mr. Obama ordered in Obamacare, therefore, are unconstitutional. This means that he does not accept some of the limitations that the Constitution places on his actions. We cannot know at this point what limitations, if any, he does accept.

By changing the law based solely on his wish, Mr. Obama acted on the principle that the President can rewrite laws and—since this is a principle—not just this law, but any law. After the crash of Obamacare, many Congressmen have implored the President to change the individual mandate the same way he had changed the employer mandate, that is, to violate the Constitution again.

The main responsibility the Constitution assigns to the President is to faithfully execute the Laws. If the President rejects this job, if instead he decides he can change or ignore laws he does not like, then what?

The time will come when Congress passes a law and the President ignores it. Or he may choose to enforce some parts and ignore others (as Mr. Obama is doing now). Or he may not wait for Congress and issue a decree (something Mr. Obama has done and has threatened to do again).

Mr. Obama has not been shy about pointing out his path. He has repeatedly made clear that he intends to act on his own authority. “I have the power and I will use it in defense of the middle class,” he has said. “We’re going to do everything we can, wherever we can, with or without Congress.” There are a number of names for the system Mr. Obama envisions, but representative government is not one of them.

If the President can ignore the laws passed by Congress, of what use is Congress? The President can do whatever he chooses. Congress can stand by and observe. Perhaps they might applaud or jeer. But in terms of political power, Congress will be irrelevant. Probably, it will become a kind of rubber-stamp or debating society. There are many such faux congresses in tyrannies throughout history and around the globe.

Mr. Obama has equal contempt for the Supreme Court. In an act of overbearing hubris, he excoriated Supreme Court Justices sitting helplessly before him during the 2010 State of the Union address—Justices who had not expected to be denounced and who were prevented by the occasion from defending themselves. Mr. Obama condemned them for restoring freedom of speech to corporations and unions.

Ignoring two centuries of practice, President Obama made four recess appointments in January 2012, when the Senate was not in recess. Three courts have found that his appointments were unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court has agreed to take up the case. If the Supreme Court finds against him, what will Mr. Obama do?

We can get a hint by looking at how other parts of his Administration have dealt with Court decisions they did not like.

The Attorney General’s Office is the branch of government charged with enforcing federal laws. After the Supreme Court struck down the key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Attorney General Holder announced that he would use other provisions of the act to get around the Court’s decision.

The Supreme Court has defined the standard for sexual harassment as “severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive” behavior to a “reasonable person.” In open defiance of that ruling, the Obama Department of Education has declared a new definition of sexual harassment for colleges, that is, “any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature,” including “verbal conduct,” even if it is not objectively offensive—thus reinforcing the reign of terror over sex on college campuses. If a young man’s request for a date turns out to be unwelcome, he is guilty of sexual harassment by definition.

The lack of respect for the Supreme Court by the Obama administration is manifest. They feel bound by the Court’s decisions only if they agree with them. If they disagree, it is deuces wild; they will embrace any fiction that nullifies the Court’s decision.

The direction in which Mr. Obama is taking us would make possible the following scenario. A Republican Congress is elected and repeals Obamacare over a Democratic President’s veto. The President refuses to enforce the repeal. The Supreme Court rules that the President’s refusal is unconstitutional. The President denounces that ruling and refuses to be bound by it.

If the President persists in rejecting all authority other than his own, the denouement would depend on the side taken by the Armed Forces. Whatever side that was, our national self-esteem would be unlikely to recover from the blow of finding that we are living in a banana republic.

The shocking fact is that our whole system of representative government depends on it being led by an individual who believes in it; who thinks it is valuable; who believes that a government dedicated to the protection of individual rights is a noble ideal. What if he does not?

Mr. Obama is moving our government away from its traditional system of checks and balances and toward the one-man-rule that dominates third world countries. He has said that he wants a fair country—implying that, as it stands, the United States is not a fair country—an unprecedented calumny committed against a country by its own leader.

What country does he think is more fair than the United States? He has three long years left in which to turn us into a fair country. Where does he intend to take us?

Mr. Obama got his conception of a fair country from his teachers. A fair country is an unfree country because it is regimented to prevent anyone from rising too high. Their ideal is egalitarianism, the notion that no one should be any better, higher, or richer than anyone else. Combined with a dollop of totalitarianism, egalitarianism has replaced communism as the dominant ideal in our most prestigious universities. Mr. Obama and his colleagues are the product of those universities, and they have their marching orders.

The most important point is that Mr. Obama does not consider himself bound by the Constitution. He could not have made that more clear. He has drawn a line in the concrete and we cannot ignore it.

Those who currently hold political office, and who want to keep our system of government, need to act now. Surely, rejection of the Constitution is grounds for impeachment and charges should be filed. In addition, there are many other actions that Congressmen can and should take—actions that will tell Mr. Obama that we have seen where he is going and we will not let our country go without a fight.

At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked what form of government had been created. “A republic,” he replied, “if you can keep it.”

We are losing it. If Mr. Obama’s reach for unprecedented power is not stopped, that will be the end. Everyone who values his life and liberty should find some way to say “No!” “Not now!” “Not yet!” “Not ever!”

M. Northrup Buechner is Associate Professor of Economics at St. John’s University, New York.

Jesus this is the most vague piece of crap I've ever read. ZOMG something was worded differently. Followed by 5 paragraphs of meaningless ad hominems like this:

Quote:

If the President persists in rejecting all authority other than his own, the denouement would depend on the side taken by the Armed Forces. Whatever side that was, our national self-esteem would be unlikely to recover from the blow of finding that we are living in a banana republic.

Obama has about average executive orders compared to past presidents. Did I just blow your mind?

It's really pretty simple. The Obama regime does not recognize separation of powers as it's been historically interpreted. They re-write laws that the legislative branch has written, they pretend as if others don't exist; as stated above they embrace any fiction to throw off court decisions that don't please them.

Representative government is under an uplifted knife with all the precedents they are setting.

Please provide specific examples of how Obama's executive decisions constitute an unprecedented abuse of power compared to past presidents. Are you well versed on the nature of executive decisions of past presidents or are you just reacting to right-wing scare-mongering? Every time I read one of these articles they have a couple vague examples and 15 paragraphs of emotional propaganda. Forbes is a complete joke at this point.

It's really pretty simple. The Obama regime does not recognize separation of powers as it's been historically interpreted. They re-write laws that the legislative branch has written, they pretend as if others don't exist; as stated above they embrace any fiction to throw off court decisions that don't please them.

Representative government is under an uplifted knife with all the precedents they are setting.

They realize 1/2 the country won't listen to a word they say so they don't go through the pretenses of even acting like they care about them. The 1/2 that does like him? Wouldn't care about laws anyway.

Great - so please give specific examples where Obama's executive order content is out of line with previous administrations.

Don't be so lazy and read the OP. It has a few examples. You'll never get the truth if you are too lazy to seek it. Propaganda is everywhere and it's all you can eat. You need to back away from the buffet.

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"Not reading the books doesn't mean I can't discuss them" - KC Native 3/14/14
”Marriage has historic, religious and moral content that goes back to the beginning of time, and I think a marriage is as a marriage has always been, between a man and a woman.”- Hillary Clinton 2000

Jesus this is the most vague piece of crap I've ever read. ZOMG something was worded differently. Followed by 5 paragraphs of meaningless ad hominems like this:

Obama has about average executive orders compared to past presidents. Did I just blow your mind?

Neato, now when people bitch about Citizens United or Shelby County, I can just say "This Supreme Court has issued about average decisions compared to past Courts. Did I just blow your mind?"

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You ever notice how on stop lights, green means go, but on a banana it's the opposite? Yellow means "go ahead." Green means "slow down." And red means "Where the **** did you get that banana?"

Don't be so lazy and read the OP. It has a few examples. You'll never get the truth if you are too lazy to seek it. Propaganda is everywhere and it's all you can eat. You need to back away from the buffet.

I did read the OP. I think you have a hard time distinguishing bald-faced emotional appeal from facts. Throughout one amazingly giant wall of text emotional appeal babble, the author gives exactly 2 specific examples of Obama flouting the constiution: Obamacare changes and recess appointments.

Bitching about recess appointments is a ****ing joke. Plenty of presidents in the past have used that, and none have faced the all-out obstructionism from congress that Obama has. No other president has ever faced filibusters over a huge chunk of their appointments. Did you know that? No, of course not.

As far as changing Obamacare - do any of you even remember that you all voted for the guy who promised to repeal Obamacare by executive order on day 1? WTF is that if not a president changing existing laws to match their own political views? At least Obama is trying to make the law work better instead of scuttle it. Modifying an existing law is a lot more against the constitution than killing it.

In 1946, legislators passed the Administrative Procedures Act, which governs the way that regulatory agencies carry out legislation. That law both gives agencies discretion in setting up laws, but holds them accountable for carrying out Congress’s intentions.
“Under the Administrative Procedure Act precedent, the courts can compel agencies that have been unreasonably delayed,” says Simon Lazarus, a senior counsel at the Constitutional Accountability Center. “Those tend to involve delays that have gone on for years.”
Courts have frequently grappled with issues of what counts as an “unreasonable” delay and, as many experts will tell you, they still haven’t set a bright line between executive discretion and disobedience.
Still, there is precedent that gives us some guidance into what is, and is not, appropriate.

...

In Chevron v. NRDC, a 1984 Supreme Court case, the justices granted regulatory authority when it comes to filling in any ambiguous gaps in a law. “The idea there was that the agency has the experts, and it also makes the executive branch electorally accountable,” Bagley says. “You’d want the President to be making the tough calls.”

...

In Congressional testimony, Treasury makes a counter argument: That the agency is by no means dispensing with the law -- they still plan to implement it -- but rather making an adjustment, well within executive discretion. The agency says this authority stems from its power to “prescribe all needful rules and regulations for the enforcement of this title.”

Moreover, this is something that the agency has done more than a dozen times before, without a peep from Congress.

“On a number of prior occasions across administrations, this authority has been used to postpone the application of new legislation when the immediate application would have subjected taxpayers to unreasonable administrative burdens or costs,” Mark Iwry, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Retirement and Health Policy at Treasury, told legislators.

...

Its also possible, legal experts say, that it's too soon to determine whether this delay counts as not implementing the Affordable Care Act – or if it's a more mundane show of discretion. If the administration had, for example, announced that it never intended to require employers to provide health benefits, that would near certainly be seen as flouting the law. But if they delay it until 2016, or 2017? That’s a greyer area.
“It depends on whether there’s really clear progress towards the implementation of the statute,” says Rob Weiner, a former associate deputy attorney at the Department of Justice, whose work focused heavily on Affordable Care Act litigation. “If they were doing nothing, at some point, I think that a court would suggest it's not an exercise of discretion and say enough is enough.”

Jesus this is the most vague piece of crap I've ever read. ZOMG something was worded differently. Followed by 5 paragraphs of meaningless ad hominems like this:

Obama has about average executive orders compared to past presidents. Did I just blow your mind?

Average in what way? If you're talking about the number of orders, it has no relevance. What matters is what they say. A single executive order could be worse than every one of the orders of the most prolific POTUS.

Edit: I see Donger has already pointed this out.

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"I'll see you guys in New York." ISIS Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to US military personnel upon his release from US custody at Camp Bucca in Iraq during Obama's first year in office.

I did read the OP. I think you have a hard time distinguishing bald-faced emotional appeal from facts. Throughout one amazingly giant wall of text emotional appeal babble, the author gives exactly 2 specific examples of Obama flouting the constiution: Obamacare changes and recess appointments.

Bitching about recess appointments is a ****ing joke. Plenty of presidents in the past have used that, and none have faced the all-out obstructionism from congress that Obama has. No other president has ever faced filibusters over a huge chunk of their appointments. Did you know that? No, of course not.

No President has ever claimed the ability to make recess appointments the way this President did. None. Facing filibusters is no excuse.

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"I'll see you guys in New York." ISIS Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to US military personnel upon his release from US custody at Camp Bucca in Iraq during Obama's first year in office.